The strange bedfellows of a Pacific trade deal

If politics makes strange bedfellows, then trade makes the strangest of them all.As President Obama meets with leaders in Mexico on Wednesday in part to continue negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership, a major trade deal with 12 Pacific nations, he faces opposition from an unusual alliance of of progressives, libertarians, tea partyers, Senate Democratic leadership and consumer groups. Making matters worse, the process to get a trade deal approved in Congress is complicated and controversial. That creates lots of …